


Detached and precious

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: rs_games, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-10
Updated: 2008-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:17:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though I'm frightened by the word, I think it's time that it was heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detached and precious

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the inaugural RS Games for the prompt "It's the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do. But you can almost always live with the consequences." (Angels in America)".
> 
> Originally posted [**here**](http://rs-games.livejournal.com/9371.html).

_I don't want to say I love you. That would give away too much_  
_Hip to be detached and precious, the only thing you feel is vicious_  
_I don't want to say I want you. Even though I want you so much_  
_It's wrapped up in conversation, it's whispered in a hush_  
_Though I'm frightened by the word,_  
_I think it's time that it was heard_

("Message to my girl" — from Split Enz's "Conflicting Emotions")

~*~

_ **Sunday** _

"Does it have to be London?"

"At least to start with," Sirius says, taking the brochure back from James, and folding it up before the breeze whips it out of fingers. "I'm really only familiar with Muggle London, not Muggle anywhere else."

It hasn't been a particularly windy day, but at nine storeys up, even a light breeze feels like a gale. He and James have climbed up to the very top of Gryffindor Tower, and are sitting just outside the Griffin Mews. The Mews haven't actually housed any Griffins in centuries, and it's quite likely that apart from the four of them, the surface of Gryffindor Tower hasn't had anybody walking on it in at least as long.

It was only at the start of their Seventh Year, when they were _formally _permitted onto the top floor of Gryffindor Tower, that they discovered the trapdoor to the roof, set into the ceiling just in front of the Head Boy's study.

"Does it have to be _Muggle_?"

"My family'll be able to find me if it's Wizarding. Both the magical licence for the property and the Floo will need to be registered in my name, but if it's Muggle – "

James eyes him doubtfully. "Yes, Padfoot, but if it's Muggle, how are _we_ going to be able to keep in contact with you if you've no Floo?"

"Well, you might actually be forced to come to London and visit me in person, Prongs," he says, shoving the brochure into a pocket in his robes for the moment.

There are another six brochures just like it in his trunk. Instead of catching the train back with Peter and James at the end of the holidays, he'd used his flying motorbike to take him to London for the weekend so that he could start looking for a flat to move into once he finishes at Hogwarts.

He looks up and sees the expression on James' face. "What is it?"

"I was going to say that London's expensive – "

"I wasn't actually planning on charging you for every visit."

"No, I meant to rent, prat. For _you._"

"I know what you meant." He's not overly worried about the amount of money he's spending – his bank account is solid enough to handle it – but he doesn't want to fling it about unnecessarily, either. "It _is_ expensive. But it's close to everything I know, and it's within staggering distance of the Academy, in case I get so knackered I can't Apparate home."

"You know you're more than welcome to stay at mine for longer if you need to. Mum wasn't joking about giving you your own room." He looks up curiously at James, because he _has _his own room at the Potters'. "Not in the guest wing. _Actually _your own room. And you must know by now she's very fond of you."

"Yes," he says, and laughs. "To hear you tell it, she's more fond of me than she is of you."

"Well, you can't blame her," James says, grinning. "She's told me more than once that she and dad kept trying for a girl after they had me. And then sixteen years later, you turn up on her doorstep like the answer to all her prayers."

They both laugh at that. __

"It's very sweet of her, really. But I've left my stuff all over the place – at your place, at Remus' mother's place, with Alphard's solicitor – "

" – and spread over most of the dorm, if Wormtail's to be believed."

Since James and Remus have their own studies – James being Head Boy and Remus being a seventh year prefect – he only has to share the dormitory with Peter.

"It's about time I got my own place," he says, although what he really wants is for it to be his and Remus' place. _All I have to do is tell him._ "And anyway, I thought..." he trails off, not really sure how to finish.

"What did you think?"

"I thought that you and Evans..." He's not sure how to finish that sentence either, and the expression on James' face isn't helping. "There's no point me moving in with you if you're never going to be around. I mean," he adds quickly, "I'm very fond of your parents, but – "

"You think I'm going to ask Lily to live with me?" James asks, sounding faintly hysterical. "We've only been going out for three months!"

"Yes, but by the end of the year, that'll be five months, and – "

"That's only five months!"

"Well, how long, then? If not five months, how long is long enough? A year? Two?"

He and Remus have been... Well, 'going out' probably isn't the correct expression, since they're rarely able to go out together alone. And 'dating' is out for the same reason. He and Remus have been _together _for around two years now.

"It's not the time," James says, pulling his robes tighter around himself as the breeze ruffles them. "I don't think I'd ask her to live with me unt – _unless _we're engaged. And..."

"And?" he asks, shifting his balance on the floor so the breeze doesn't blow his robes up over his legs.

This wasn't the answer he was hoping for. In all honestly, he's not fussed whether James and Lily move in together or not, but he was hoping to get some indication of whether or not it would be too soon for him to ask Remus to move in with him.

_Until you're engaged... That's not really an option for Remus and I._

"Well, Marlene and I were going out for almost all of last year. That's four times longer than Lily and I have been together. And Marlene and I both _knew _it wasn't going to be forever."

James had pretty well given up on Lily in Sixth Year, and had started going out with Lily's best friend, Marlene McKinnon. They'd split up because Peter had told James that _he_ fancied McKinnon. _Really _fancied her, as opposed to simply wanting to use her to get over someone else.

James decided it wasn't fair for him to use McKinnon to get over Evans – even though McKinnon didn't mind, and had already told James that she was only going out with him to get over Sirius – when there was somebody else who genuinely liked her.

And Lily must have realised how much she missed having James asking her out or inquiring after her all the time, because the very next time he asked her out, she said yes – _without_ adding any caveats or conditions.

"Besides, it's one thing to be going out while we're both at school, but it'll be different out in the real world. I don't even know if she plans to stay in England. We've never discussed it."

"Yeah, I can see it would be difficult bringing that up," he says. "Especially when you don't know what the other person – "

"There you are!"

They both turn to face the trapdoor to see Remus climbing out of it.

"I thought I asked you to – Oh, hello Prongs." Remus straightens and dusts off his robes before walking over to them, and sitting next to Sirius. "What are the two of you talking about?"

"Padfoot was saying he's going to fly his motorbike off the top of Gryffindor Tower on our last day," James lies smoothly. "We were trying to work out how far he'd fall before the Hovering Charm kicked in."

"_You _were trying to work it," he shoots back. "_I _know that I won't fall at all, because the Hovering Charm will activate before my front wheel even leaves the surface."

"Well, I'm glad you're spending your time productively," Remus says mildly.

"It'd be a lot more productive if Wormtail were to get a move on," James says.

Remus looks over at him sharply, and he knows that Remus is wondering whether the three of them planned to meet here without telling him.

"Prongs and I decided to come up here after you ran off, and Wormtail's gone off to raid Slughorn's supply cupboard for – "

"I didn't _run off_," Remus says testily, and for a moment, Sirius is worried that Remus is forgetting that James is there. "I said I'd be back in five minutes."

"I'll have you know I spent a full twenty minutes waiting for you." _In_ _your bed, naked and hard._ "It's not _my_ fault you can't tell time."

He wonders if he's done something to upset Remus. Earlier tonight – after Sirius had spent the week long break with the Potters while Remus spent the break at Hogwarts – he'd actually had to ask Remus to kiss him hello when he'd returned to the school.

_Remus_.

Remus, who normally can't keep his hands off Sirius, today had to be _asked _to kiss him.

Remus, who normally pounces on Sirius as soon as they're alone together before tearing off Sirius' clothes, today remained seated at his desk and asked Sirius to undress for him.

As if all of that weren't strange enough, Remus had looked amused when Sirius had stripped, and when Sirius had asked him why, Remus had said it was because Sirius was supposed to be undressing _for him_, rather than merely taking his clothes off, to put Remus 'in the mood'.

And that is what puzzles him most, because as far as he's aware, Remus is _always '_in the mood'.

"Next time," Peter says, as he climbs out of the trapdoor, "one of you three can break into the potions' cupboard for Slughorn's hellebore."

"What's got you?" James asks, frowning at Peter.

"Nothing's got me, it's more a question of what _almost _got me! Slughorn's started to – "

"Well, I can't go and get the stuff," James says, before Peter can finish. "I'm not taking the Potions N.E.W.T. Beside_s, _I'm Head Boy. I can't go sneaking around pinching things."

"It can't be me either, then," Remus says, as Peter lets the trapdoor slam. "I'm also not taking the Potions N.E.W.T. _and_ I'm allergic to half the ingredients in that cupboard."

"Don't all look at me," he says. "A rat is much less inconspicuous than a dog. Particularly _my _dog. Anyway, Wormtail, you agreed to do it if I cleared out of the dorm tonight so that you and McKinnon could – "

"That was before I discovered that Slughorn has set a Pied Piper Charm on his cupboards to keep rats and other – "

"But that charm only works on rats. And you _aren't_ a rat," James says impatiently. "You're a _rat_ _Animagus_. For fuck's sake, you shouldn't be taken in by a simple rodent repelling charm!"

"Does this mean you need somewhere to sleep tonight, Padfoot?" Remus asks in an overly innocent tone of voice, ignoring Peter and James' bickering.

"It does. But look, if it's too much trouble for you, I can just as easily sleep in James' study," he says.

"In – There's no need for that," Remus says. When Sirius doesn't respond, Remus adds, "I planned to come back to you straight away, but I had to give the Fat Lady's new password to at least one of the other prefects, and it took me a while before I could – "

"It took you an hour. To find one Gryffindor prefect," he says flatly, not meaning it as a question. "You said you'd only be five minutes. I waited twenty, but it was still another half an hour after that before you – "

"IF YOU'RE GOING TO THROW THINGS AT MY HEAD, THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS TAKE THE ANTI-SUMMONING CHARM OFF THEM FIRST!"

Both he and Remus jump at Peter's shouting, turning to see what he and James are arguing about.

"You threw it at me first," James says, without contrition. "And I_ said_ that it was your turn to skin up."

"It's always my turn for everything," Peter grumbles, standing up to search for the hellebore.

Remus and James stand as well. Remus reaches down to help Sirius to his feet, and he winces as he's hauled up, holding his robes closed with his hand.

"Calm down, Wormtail," he says, taking the opportunity to press against Remus for a moment as he stands. "If it makes you feel any better, at least you'll be having it off tonight. None of the rest of us will."

James laughs, but Remus actually does a double-take when Sirius says those words.

_Don't believe me? Well, you'd better start. You're not going to be having it off either unless you start being a lot nicer to me. _

Peter looks as though he's about to lose his temper, too, opening his mouth to defend his girlfriend's honour.

"Marlene is not a – "

"Oh, give it a rest. _Point me hellebore_," James says, holding his wand across the palm of his hand and watching it spin. "Over there," he says, turning to face it. "Come on, Wormtail," he adds, slinging an arm around Peter's shoulders and leading him along.

Sirius starts to follow, but Remus grabs his sleeve and holds him back.

"What do you mean Wormtail's the only one that'll be having it – "

"I mean that we were about to, earlier tonight. I mean that I was practically _begging you _to_, _earlier tonight. But you saw fit to walk out on this," he says, taking a deep breath and ensuring that Peter and James are behind him before he pulls the front of his robes open and flashes Remus. "Since you're obviously not interested, it's unlikely _I'm_ going to be – "

"Oh fucking hell, Padfoot," Remus whispers, staring unashamedly even though Sirius has closed his robes again. "We need to get away from here right now."

_Ah, you **do **still want me,_ he thinks, relieved.

He was so certain that Remus would be back soon that he hadn't bothered to dress again. He didn't want Remus to insist on a strip tease the second time he made Sirius undress for the night, particularly since Remus had laughed at him the first time, and called him adorable.

The past half an hour he's spent on top of Gryffindor Tower, with the breeze whistling past his unmentionables, is _entirely _justified by the expression on Remus' face.

"Come on," he says, leading Remus over to where Peter and James are still searching for the hellebore. "Let's get this over with."

"I think Slughorn's also neutralised the _point me_ charm," Remus says, raising his voice slightly so that Peter can hear him. "Your wand's pointing you to Greenhouse Six."

"Well, get your bike out of the Mews, Padfoot, fly down to Greenhouse Six and fetch some back," Peter says.

"What, and smoke it green? Don't be daft," he says. "Look, your lot will still be around here somewhere. It'll be easier to find tomorrow, in the light of day. In the meantime – "

"In the meantime?" Remus asks. "Padfoot, you're welcome to stay up as long as you want, but I've spent all day studying and I plan to go to bed in ten minutes. You'd best come down soon, or you can find somewhere else to sleep."

"I'll be down soon," he promises, looking over to where Peter is scowling into the darkness. "Wormtail! Everything all right with you and McKinnon?"

"I don't see that it's any business of – "

"That sounds like a 'no'," James says, laughing.

"What's the matter?" he asks, trying again.

Peter is quiet for a moment and then says, "She says I need to... I need to stand up for myself more."

He frowns and looks at James to see if James understands any better. The two of them have been telling Peter – and Remus, for that matter – the same thing for _years _now.

"No, what she said was that she doesn't want you to let Padfoot and I order you around," James says, managing to say it without mocking.

"How do you – " Peter starts to ask, before he realises. "Evans told you."

"No, actually Marlene told me herself," James says.

Peter's expression tightens as he is reminded once _again _that McKinnon used to be James' girlfriend before she became Peter's. It's something Peter is particularly sensitive about since a lot of the other students assume that McKinnon must give it away for nothing if she could have a crush on one Marauder, date another, and then move on to a third. Evans has told James that McKinnon has been asked more times than she can count when she'll be ditching Peter for Remus.

"Here, I'll help you search for it the hellebore,” James says nicely, enchanting some of the stones set into the turrets so that they glow, giving them something to see by. "After all the trouble you went to, it would be a shame to leave it out here overnight to get all dewy and damp.”

Peter looks grateful for James' assistance, and Sirius decides that James can handle whatever Peter's problem is on his own.

"And _tomorrow _night," he says, making his way to the trapdoor, "we can actually use it. 'Night, both of you."

"'Night, Padfoot."

He opens the trapdoor and starts to lower himself through it when he realises that someone has removed the ladder.

"Moony?"

"Yes, Padfoot?"

"Moony, what have you done with the ladder?"

"Nothing, it's right here." There's some clattering from below and then the top rung of the ladder presses up against the sole of his boot. "There."

"Why did you remove it, if – " he starts to ask as he climbs down, but when he sees the expression on Remus' face, he knows exactly why. "You _are _a dirty wolf," he says, smiling down, even though Remus is staring up his robes and not looking at his face.

"You're wearing the – I thought I got a glimpse of it before. Fucking _hell, _Padfoot, and you call _me _dirty!"

"You _are _dirty," he says, finally touching down onto the ground and shoving the ladder most of the way back to the roof before closing the trapdoor. "Hiding the ladder deliberately so that I wouldn't be able to climb down until _after _you'd positioned yourself to – "

"And I'm glad I did," Remus says, grabbing Sirius' hand and pulling him along at a run towards his study. "Snidget," he tells the portrait of the Silver Warlock on his study door.

"Right you are," the Silver Warlock says, yawning sleepily as his portrait swings open to allow the two of them through to Remus' study.

"Now. You," Remus says, catching him and tossing him onto the bed before climbing aboard. "_You _are a dirty boy who is a tremendous tease, and I am going to – "

"_Me _a tease? _You're _the one that got me all hot and bothered before buggering off to see another prefect about a password," he says, shivering as Remus flicks his robe open and pulls his legs apart.

"You're the one who put _this_ into yourself," Remus says, reaching between Sirius' legs and giving the Squid a turn.

Neither of them are sure what it's actually called – he'd ordered it out of a catalogue along with a number of other items without really paying attention to the boxes he was ticking – but the toy resembles a squid, with a long, smooth shaft to go into him, and six straps that are for winding and tying around the rest of him.

"You're the one that drove me to – _Oh. _Fuck," he whispers back, snapping his hips up as Remus smiles and rotates the Squid slightly.

"More?"

"_No_..." he gasps, as Remus twists it again. What he wants is for Remus to stop playing with him and to fuck him.

"No?" Remus asks, looking genuinely startled, and before frowning. "Did you use this to get off already?" he asks, slowly pulling it out.

"No.”

"But you were going to,” Remus says, before shoving it back in and making him claw at the sheets.

"_Ah! _Yes. _Yes._”

"Until James interrupted you and dragged you up to the roof. That's why you were naked under your robe, wasn't it? Dirty, dirty boy,” Remus murmurs, before pulling the Squid out entirely. "Getting off behind your boyfriend's back.”

"I won't do it again, I swear, but you have to fuck me right now.”

"You're sure?" Remus asks, shrugging out of his clothes. "Just like this?" he asks, placing a hand on Sirius' hip and encouraging him to lift up so that Remus can slip one of the pillows under him.

"Just like this_,_" he says, squirming out of the sleeves of his own robe, as Remus bites at his underarms, and his nipples, and his throat. "_Please _fuck me now."

"Well, when you ask me nicely like that," Remus says, giving him a quick kiss before lining himself up and pushing forward. "Fucking... _ow,_" Remus yelps.

It's like he's being burned up from the inside out.

"Get off me! Get out, get out, _get out,_" he shrieks, shoving at Remus with both hands. _Bloody hell, it never hurt this badly ever. Not even the first time. _But Remus pulling out hurts almost as much as Remus pushing in. "Stop moving. Stop _moving_."

"I can't stay inside you forever, Sirius. Besides, you said you were – Oh, why do I ever listen to you," Remus adds, under his breath. "All right, I'm going to pull out on the count of three, all right?"

"No! No it isn't! No moving! No – stop it, stop it, stop it..." He can't understand what they've done wrong. A minute ago, he felt like he would _die _if he couldn't have Remus' cock before the end of the night, and now...

"It'll be okay," Remus pants, looking around the room for their wands. "I'll just cast a lubricating charm inside you and – "

He shrieks again as Remus flattens himself against him, stretching to one side for his wand with his fingers scrabbling just short of it.

"I said _no moving_!"

"We're going back to Plan A. On three, Sirius, all right?"

"NO! Why aren't you listening to – "

"Listening to you is what got us here in the first place. On three. One – "

"_Ow,_ you _fucking wanker, _you said on 'three'!" he hisses between gritted teeth, twisting free of Remus.

He can feel Remus moving away, and he can hear the sound of frantic rummaging before Remus returns.

"I had to do it before three," Remus murmurs. There's the 'pop' of a phial being uncorked and a splash, before the scent of almonds hits his nose. "If you'd tensed up any more... I know you're very fond of my cock," Remus says, and he can hear the smile in Remus' voice, "but it's extremely selfish of your arse to try to tear it off and hoard it to itself forever. Sirius? Hey, look at me."

He opens watering eyes to see Remus looking at down at him worriedly.

"Is this better?" Remus asks, slowly wriggling an oiled finger into him, and relieving some of the pain of having been rubbed raw. He nods in response, not trusting himself to speak. Remus bends forward and kisses him lingeringly on the mouth. "You let me know when you're ready for more."

_But I thought I **was**_.

"What happened just now?"

"You were dry," Remus says simply, settling into a rhythm.

"I wasn't. I _can't _have been," he says, when Remus looks unconvinced, "since you spent about four hours tormenting me exactly like this before you decided you had more important things to do."

"It was five minutes, not four hours," Remus says patiently. "And even then, it was over an hour ago, Sirius. And wearing the Squid ensured that while my _tormenting _didn't all go to waste, you still weren't nearly prepared for – "

"It didn't hurt when you fucked me with the Squid just now," he says, wincing slightly before covering his face with one hand, wiping away his tears with his thumb.

"The Squid is made of plastic. I am made of skin. And, all right, you weren't completely dry. Just slick enough for me to get partway in, but not slick enough for it to be fun for either of us. Don't hide from me, Sirius," Remus says quietly, before removing his finger and kissing Sirius again. "If this hurts, you can say."

"You were right," he says, making himself lift his hand away even though he doesn't want to look at Remus right now. "I'm rubbish at this."

"When did I say – "

"Before. When you asked me strip and I did and you laughed and said I was crap at... at..." Fuck, it's so embarrassing he can't even finish the sentence. "At getting you in the mood," he finishes with a sigh. He smiles, to show that he hasn't taken the comment to heart. "And you're right. I am rubbish at this."

"You aren't," Remus says, taking Sirius' hand in his own. "Come on, Sirius, how could you possibly be crap at this after the way you flashed me upstairs just now? I went rigid the moment I saw you, and I nearly came when I watched you climbing down the ladder."

"Only nearly?" he asks. He doesn't have to work as much at smiling anymore, and finds that he can actually laugh as he says, "I'll have to try harder next time."

"Not very much harder," Remus murmurs. "And besides, you couldn't have known that all the rubbing and stretching we did was only good for the next ten minutes or so, and that we'd have to start all over again when we wanted to fuck. _I _should have known better than to take you at your word when you said you were ready." Remus smiles and kisses the tip of Sirius' nose.

"Oh, right. And I suppose that makes me _adorable_, does it?" he asks, still stinging from Remus' earlier remark about his stripping, and not ready to be teased again just yet.

Remus blinks at him in confusion. "I don't see what's so terrible about calling you adorable," he says, pressing his lips firmly to Sirius' temple.

"Adorable is not a word that applies to someone you want to fuck."

_That is if you **do **still want to fuck me. _It's actually starting to concern him now since Remus has never held out this long before.

"You're not _someone_ I want to fuck. You're my Sirius and the word _does_ apply to you, and that isn't the terrible thing you seem to think it is," Remus says, getting a good look at the expression on Sirius' face. "I'll show you," Remus says, turning away to look at the pile of books on his desk.

Sirius raises himself up onto his elbows to see what Remus is pointing out. "_Accio_ diction – Oh, fuck, _duck_," Remus cries, flattening both of them against the bed as every single one of Remus' books lifts up from the desk and flies toward them, before crashing against the wall and thudding down around them.

"Are you all right?" Remus asks, lifting himself slightly and pulling a face when a particularly fat tome falls off his back, bounces off the bed, and lands on the floor in a shower of pages.

It isn't just the books; all of the bits of parchment that Remus has used to make notes or mark his place in different books have all been shaken loose.

"I'm almost afraid to answer that. You won't be satisfied until you've killed us both, will you?"

"Oh, fuck you," Remus says, but without any real heat.

"I wish you would," he says, pulling Remus down to kiss him, but Remus is laughing too hard to be kissed properly. "What was all that for, anyway?"

"I wanted my dictionary, but you can take my word for it for now. Adorable," Remus says, kissing him on the nose again. "Adjective. Means worthy of adoration," Remus says, kissing his throat, moving down to Sirius' navel and pausing there for a moment before he kisses the tip of Sirius' cock. "And worship," Remus says, very, very quietly, and it's as though he's hearing the words through his skin rather than with his ears.

"Remus – "

"I'm not planning on going anywhere else tonight. Is it all right if I stay here and worship you for a bit?"

He finds he's not actually capable of vocalising a response to that, but it's all right because as it happens, Remus is a _lot _better at this than he is.

~*~

_ **Monday** _

He's trying to work out whether he should bother getting up just yet, or sleep for a little longer, when a bright beam of sunlight shines onto his face.

Which means that Sirius has left the curtains open.

_Again_.

"Sirius?"

When there's no response, he turns his head away from the sun and opens his eyes. He shouldn't be surprised that Sirius isn't there. His bed is so narrow that the only way the two of them can sleep in it together is if one of them sleeps on top of the other one.

They'd twice tried to cast an Engorgement Charm on the bed, and both times, McGonagall had found some reason to come up to Remus' study to ask him something trivial. The first time might have been a coincidence. The second time, McGonagall had arrived much faster, looked pointedly at the bed, then looked pointedly at Sirius, and then said that the room was called the Prefect's Study because it was for the _prefect _to _study _in. __

They hadn't risked a third time, because it is one thing for McGonagall to suspect that Remus is letting Sirius use his study to have it off with some girl. It is quite another thing for McGonagall to suspect that the two of them were attempting to enlarge the bed because they intended to have it off with _one another_.

"Sirius?" he tries again, swinging his legs out of the bed and looking around the room for his boyfriend.

Sirius isn't there. For that matter, neither is the mess from the previous night. All of his books have been repaired and stacked neatly on his desk. As he blinks, the enormous pile of white that is next to his books comes into focus and he realises that it is a stack of all of his notes and place markers. And just as tidily, next to that stack, are the Squid (clean) and the oil phial (capped).

"Remus?"

He starts in surprise at the sound of Sirius' voice, and then realises that it's coming from the two-way mirror that Sirius usually stows under Remus' pillow. He must have activated it when he said Sirius' name. Shoving his hand under the pillow, he yanks the mirror open to see Sirius' face smiling back at him.

"Morning, Moony," Sirius says, sounding far too perky and looking far too well-groomed for whatever god-forsaken hour it happens to be. Remus grunts noncommittally in response. "I'm having breakfast in Prongs' study, if you want to come over. We made sure to steal enough for three," he adds with a grin. "And I managed to persuade the elves to brew fresh coffee, in case you were having one of _those _mornings."

He _is_ having one of those mornings. Normally, he doesn't need tea or even hot chocolate to get going in the morning. But as the study load for N.E.W.T.s has grown over the year, he finds that if he doesn't get coffee, he can't remember anything from any of his classes for that day.

"I'll be over in a bit," he says.

"Don't forget that we've double Transfiguration in half an hour."

"Padfoot, I have to get dressed. I said I'll be over in a bit," he promises.

"You'd better. Might not be anything left for you otherwise."

He snaps the mirror shut on Sirius' face and half-climbs, half-stumbles out of bed, catching himself on his chair before he falls over.

_Transfiguration text, where have you got to... Where have you – Ah, there._

He pulls it out from the middle of the stack, taking care not to dislodge the books that are resting on top of it.

_Okay, Transfiguration's first, but what comes after that? _

He should know this, but a mental block keeps him from remembering the class that follows Transfiguration and never mind that it is the _same_ class that will have _always_ followed Transfiguration on a Monday morning for the last seven months.

He flips through the parchment bits that Sirius has piled next to his books, searching for his timetable. When he can't find it immediately, he shoves his clothes off his chair, sits at the desk and starts working through the parchment pile methodically.

_History of Magic, Arithmancy, Arithmancy, Arithmancy, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Charms, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, History of Magic... _

_Fucking hell, where's my bloody timetable?_

He flicks the bits of parchment into separate piles, vaguely differentiated by subject.

Even as early as third year, Sirius had been horrified at Remus' – and every _normal _student's – habit of scribbling notes in their textbooks. James had had to patiently explain to Sirius that not all of the students came from a family like Sirius', where possessions were never truly your own, and were handed down in pristine condition from one generation to the next.

Even though Sirius ran away from the House of Black, and bought his own books for Seventh Year – _actually _his own, not just his until he had to pass them onto Regulus – he would still look vaguely wounded any time Remus looked as though he was about to write something in one of Remus' own books.

_Haven't you learned by now never to listen to Sirius? Sirius' way of doing things only works if you're Sirius. Or possibly James, _he thinks, setting fifteen Transfiguration parchment bits to one side. Parchment bits that would have been _entirely unnecessary _if Sirius hadn't acted as though he were being boiled alive every time Remus poised his quill over a textbook to underline something.

_Arithmancy, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, Transfiguration, _

_Transf – Oh, for fuck's sake..._

The Transfiguration pile is growing larger, and there is still no sign of his timetable.

_It has to be here **somewhere**... Arithmancy, Arithmancy, Arith – What?_

It's a note from Sirius, and he smiles as he sets it down to make the beginning of yet _another _pile.

While Remus would have preferred to have had Sirius with him during the holidays, he _did_ get a lot of prep done. Not anywhere near as much as he needs to get done before they start their N.E.W.T.s, but enough that he's actually able to do all of the spell work, incantations and sketches. Now he just needs to be able to do all of those things – correctly – without his textbooks or notes open in front of him.

And there are less than two months to go.

_Not just the class timetable... Where's my study timetable got to? _Sighing, he flips through the parchment that yet to be sorted, but without any luck. _It can't have just **disappeared...**_ he thinks, before it occurs to him to check whether anything slipped under the bed.

Standing, he grips the mattress and pulls it away from the wall before climbing onto the bed and peering down into the gap between the bed frame and the wall.

"_Lumos_."

Not only did he have more time to himself, but when the other three are away, he doesn't feel like a complete idiot. Just because he has to work to understand things that the other three take for granted… Particularly in Transfiguration.

As grateful as he is for the efforts that his friends made to be Animagi, he sometimes wishes that they had included him in their preparatory work, if only so that he wasn't always a million miles behind them in the subject.

_But no.__ They wanted to **surprise** you_.

He holds his wand between his teeth and leans forward, finding to his relief that some of his notes _have _fallen through the gap. Sticking his hand down, he fishes for the parchment, and then finds that he can't get his fist back through the gap.

_For fuck's sake!_

Flattening the parchment between the wall and his palm, he inches his hand out of the gap –

"Remus?"

— only to drop everything when he startles at the sound of someone at his door.

"Who's there?"

"Who d'you think it is? Open the door," Sirius replies testily.

"Come in," he says, raising his voice to carry to the Silver Warlock outside. The door opens, and Sirius gives him a vaguely disgusted look, as though Remus has been lolling about in bed all this time. "I said I'd be over in a bit."

"You _said _you were going to get dressed," Sirius says, kicking the door shut behind him and ignoring the Warlock's shout of protest. "Here, I brought you some coffee," he adds, setting a steaming mug onto Remus' desk, being careful to avoid the various little stacks of parchment. "Hurry up and drink it. We've class in ten minutes."

"In ten – You said I had half an hour!"

"Yes, Remus, you _had _half an hour. Now you have ten minutes."

_I... What? _

At least that explains why Sirius is in such a strop. Sirius always takes it as a personal affront whenever Remus is late meeting him.

"I was looking for my timetable," he says, still with his hand in the gap between the bed and the wall.

Sirius raises an eyebrow at him, his expression clearly asking whether Remus has forgotten that he's a wizard, before he draws his wand.

"_Accio _timetable." Sirius catches the parchment out of the air as it flies out from under the bed and up towards him. "Here. What do you want with it?"

"I wanted to know what we have after Transfiguration."

"It's _double _Transfiguration, Remus. After it, we have break and then _you _have Runes."

"Okay. I was – I'll be down shortly."

"You'll come down with me," Sirius says firmly. "Get _dressed_, please," he says, finding Remus' school robe on the floor and tossing it to him.

He catches the robe and puts it on over his pyjamas – he can get changed during break – and shuffles over to the washstand to clean his face.

"Here. Drink," Sirius says, holding the mug out to him. He takes it gratefully and takes a cautious sip. "I'll get your – Where is your scrip?" Without waiting for an answer, Sirius digs around on the other side of Remus' desk, and emerges triumphant. "What colour ink do you use for Transfiguration?"

"Orange," he says, taking another drink of coffee, content to sit where he is and let Sirius fuss.

Part of the reason Remus hadn't tried to Summon his timetable was because of the disaster last night when he'd tried to Summon his dictionary. He wonders if Sirius has ever worried about a charm not doing whatever it is Sirius wants it to do.

_As if._

It never ceases to amaze him that Sirius can be self-assured about... Well, about nearly everything, while at the same time turning into such a basket case when it comes to sex. It's not that sex with Sirius is unpleasant – far from it. It's that Sirius seems convinced that he's no good at it. Which wouldn't be a problem, except Sirius' neurotic worrying tends to _make _him no good at it.

"Here. I've packed your text book, your parchment and your orange ink bottle," Sirius says, extending the scrip out to Remus and holding his free hand out to take back the mug. "Are you hungry?"

"Not really. I'll last until break. I thought we could..." He trails off as Sirius looks at him intently.

"That we could what?"

"Have breakfast together. I didn't think you'd go to Prongs'."

"Had to talk to him," Sirius says.

**_Had _**_to? You already spent the entire holiday with him. _

"Listen, you'd better get moving," Sirius says in an obvious attempt to change the subject. "I'll follow in a bit."

It's another Monday morning tradition; taking care not to walk into Transfiguration together in case McGonagall starts to suspect that the two of them are anything other than friends. Particularly since she saw that Sirius was in his study during both of their attempts to enlarge the bed.

"No, you go first," he says, covering a yawn behind one hand. "If you're late, she'll give you a detention. If _I'm _late, I can always tell her I wasn't feeling — "

Sirius snorts before he can finish. "If I go first, you'll lose track of time again and still be here an hour later. _Go._ If I get detention, I get detention. It won't be the first time and it isn't going to be the last."

He races down the stairs and towards the classroom, pretending he can't hear one of the third years bleating his name, and then pretending that he doesn't feel bad for not attending to her. _It's not as though Gryffindor has a shortage of people she can annoy. There're five other prefects, to say nothing of a Head Boy **and **Girl._

McGonagall hasn't arrived when Remus slips behind the desk next to Peter.

"Late start?" James asks, leaning across the desk that is reserved for Sirius.

"Can never sleep properly when Sirius sleeps over," he says under his breath. It isn't a lie, but he doesn't want any of the girls hearing him.

"Don't blame _me_," Peter says, also looking as though he hasn't had much sleep. "I told him he couldn't sleep in the dorm, I didn't say he had to – " Peter stops and covers his mouth as he yawns.

"Did you end up finding the hellebore?" he asks.

"Yep," James says, sounding pleased. "Safely stashed in the Head Boy's study." James always refers to his Head Boy-self in the third person when he's breaking the school rules.

James' voice isn't quiet enough, and he has Evan's attention.

"_What _is safely stashed in – " she starts to ask, just as Sirius arrives with McGonagall hard on his heels.

Sirius walks quickly to his desk – he has never actually seen Sirius run – as the rest of them stand to greet McGonagall.

"Be seated," she says, before opening a leather folder and taking out what looks like the essays they submitted before the break. "Mister Black," she calls, passing Sirius' essay back to him, before moving on to Lily.

He doesn't intend to look, but he can see that apart from the 'O' marked on the corner, there isn't any red ink on Sirius' essay. When his own is returned to him, it is covered in McGonagall's precise script.

"Overall, the quality of the essays was good. However, it is evident that a number of you have failed to grasp some of the..."

He tunes her out as he looks down at his essay, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees that she's marked an 'A' for 'acceptable' in the top, right hand corner. He reads down the parchment, seeking out her comments so that he can work out what he's done wrong. Her red ink is all over the parchment asking for more information here, correcting a mistake there and leaving encouraging comments in the margin.

Looking up again, he sees that McGonagall is writing something on the blackboard. He turns to Sirius to ask if he has missed anything important, and sees that Sirius is writing quickly, glancing up at the board occasionally, but filling up his parchment at a steady rate.

_What on Earth is **Sirius **doing taking notes? Must be something important if… _And then he sees that James is doing the same thing, and realises that what they're writing probably has nothing to do with Transfiguration, and that the only reason that Sirius keeps glancing up is to ensure that McGonagall doesn't pull him up for not paying attention.

_Double Transfiguration, then break, then Ancient Runes... And then what? Care of Magical Creatures. Lunch. Defence Against the Dark Arts. Arithmancy. _

Of all of those, Care of Magical Creatures is the one that he's least worried about. Partly it's because the subject itself is such a walk, but mostly it's because his father was an expert on Magical Creatures. And he has all of his father's –

_Fuck! Father's books! Were they on my desk last night? _

When his father had died, his step‑mother had tried to deny Remus' inheritance entirely. It was only through Sirius' Uncle Alphard's interference that Remus received anything from his father's estate.

There had been some money, but more valuable than that were the manuscripts that Patrice Lupin had drafted, which contained his own, first-hand research on magical creatures – particularly dark creatures. He'd originally read through those manuscripts in an attempt to understand his father better, rather than in an attempt to understand the magical creatures better. But reading through his father's note has given him a knowledge of some kinds of magical creatures that surpasses even Professor Kettleburn's.

_For all the good it'll do me. Even a halfwit like Kitty Belby can get an 'E' in Care of Magical Creatures without straining herself. _

More importantly though, the manuscripts are something he'll be able to sell if he needs money. And if his marks don't start to pick up, they may well be his only source of income. He worries that they may have been damaged in the accident last night.

_It would be just my luck if – _

Sirius jabs him sharply in the ribs, and he is just turning to see what Sirius wants when he hears Peter say, "The difference is that when you Transfigure a hedgehog into a pincushion, you shut down the hedgehog's mind, but when you try to Transfigure a pincushion into a – "

"Yes, that will do Mister Pettigrew. The question was addressed to Mister Lupin," McGonagall says.

"Oh," Peter says, as stupidly as he can. "But you were looking at me, Professor. Well, the reason the return transformation is different is – "

"I said that will _do_, Mister Pettigrew. Mister Lupin?" she says, looking expectantly at him.

"The return spell from a Transfigured pincushion back to a hedgehog is different to Transfiguring an ordinary pincushion into hedgehog," he starts to say, hoping that he's on the right track, "because in the first instance, you have to reanimate the hedgehog's mind, but in the latter instance, you have to Transfigure a mind for the pincushion."

"That is correct," McGonagall says, although she doesn't sound particularly impressed when she says it. _Probably because she knows that Peter gave you most of the answer._ "Please try not to daydream in my class."

An eternity later, the bell rings to let them out for break, and McKinnon jumps out of her seat to hold the door open for McGonagall.

"I'm going back to my study to get changed," he tells Sirius, before shovelling his things into his scrip and racing back to Gryffindor Tower. "Meet me there."

He tears off his school robe as soon as he's back in his room, and drapes it over his bed. Shimmying out of his pyjamas, he flips his trunk open and pulls out a sweater and corduroy trousers. As soon as he's changed, he picks up his school robe again.

_Creased to fuck_, he thinks, hanging it from the back of his door before casting a Pressing Charm to remove the wrinkles. Instead of ironing them out, his charm removes the creases by slicing away the surrounding fabric.

_Fucking hell! What just..._

"_Reparo_. _Reparo,_" he repeats, when the first one doesn't take. "**_REPARO!_**" The cuts close over, to his relief, but the creases reappear.

_I must be losing my mind. I can't manage a simple Summoning or Pressing Charm, and the Repair Charm only worked on the third try._

He yanks the robe off the door and pulls it over his head, flailing his arms through it, just as someone knocks on the door.

"That you, Padfoot?"

"Yeah, can I come in?"

"Yes, come in," he says, his head popping through the collar of the robe as the door opens for Sirius.

"I stole you some toast," Sirius says, setting it on Remus' desk. "And Prongs and I took notes for you in Transfiguration," he says, handing over several inches' worth of parchment to Remus. "Do you need more coffee?"

He smiles gratefully as he accepts the notes from Sirius. "I don't think there's enough coffee in world to get my brain going again."

"Listen, I'm sorry about earlier. I just… I hate it when you keep me waiting."

"This morning?"

"This morning. Yesterday night. The fifty times before that," Sirius says, but he's smiling as he says it, and that means he can't be too annoyed. "Did you smoke anything on your own last night? Before we arrived?"

"No. No, I can't blame this on anything except for my own... My own... Ah, sod it." He can't think of the right word, and shrugs. "Thanks for doing this," he says, stowing the notes in a safe place, before pulling Sirius close and kissing him. "'Sides. I'll have a legitimate excuse soon enough." It'll be Full two nights from now, and the Professors are usually a little more understanding about the quality of his work.

The rest of the day passes in a hazy blur until Arithmancy, when Professor Vector asks Remus to stay behind after class because the assignment he turned in was of such poor quality that she needs him to resubmit it.

He stands at her desk for a full half an hour as she explains where he's gone wrong, and what he'll need to do to bring his work up to standard. A full _thirty minutes_, and yet when he walks back to Gryffindor Tower, he can't remember a word she'd said.

Sirius is seated on the floor outside Remus' study, and smiles when he sees Remus. "What did Vector want with you?"

"I need to redo my Arithmancy paper," he says by way of greeting, before giving the password to his study.

"Want any help with it?" Sirius asks, standing up and following him through.

"I would, thanks," he says, handing his paper across to Sirius. "She hasn't bothered to mark which ones I got right and which ones I got wrong because she wants me to redo the whole thing."

He's fairly certain that the reason she wants him to redo the whole thing is because she thinks that he fluked the ones he got right.

Sirius glances over the parchment. "Give me your quill. This first one's wrong," Sirius says, before inking in the correct answer.

"Why is it wrong?"

"What do you mean why is it wrong? Because it _is,_" Sirius says, frowning. "There's only one right answer and this isn't – "

"No, I mean, how did you get that answer? You didn't show any working out," he says, settling onto the bed and drawing Sirius down to sit next to him. Sirius still looks perplexed, so Remus points to the next question. "Here. How would you answer that one?"

"Like this," Sirius says, running a line through Remus' answer and writing the correct answer neatly next to the question.

"But how did you _do_ that? How do you know that mine's wrong and that yours isn't? This," he says, pointing to Sirius' solution, "doesn't tell me anything." He scans the parchment for a particularly difficult problem and points to it. "Can you do that one?"

Sirius looks at the question, counts under his breath, scribbles down the alchemical symbols for sulphur and for salt and the symbols for Aries and Venus, and then writes an E followed by some numbers. Under this, he writes a G and follows it with slightly different numbers.

"I'm converting the Egyptian Calendar to the Gregorian," he explains. "And...there!" he finishes, writing the answer out. "Is that more helpful?"

"A little," he says, biting his lip.

"Why don't you just copy my paper?" Sirius offers.

"She'll know it wasn't my work," he says, but he is sorely tempted. "It's all right. I'll have to work out how to do it on my own before N.E.W.T.s anyway. I'll just have to reread my notes and Chapter Eighteen of the text – Oh!" Rifling through his books, he locates his father's manuscripts tangled up with his own notes for Care of Magical Creatures.

"What is it, Remus?"

"I was worried that my father's books were damaged in the, er, incident last night."

"They were, a little," Sirius says, wiggling back on the bed so that he can rest his back against the wall. "But I repaired them. I was particularly careful with the diagrams," he says reassuringly when Remus turns to look at him. "The binding on the manuscript for the book about grindylows had split, so I've just clipped the pages together for now, but we can always take it to a – "

There's another knock on the door. "Come in," he says, as Sirius moves forward to the edge of the bed. "Oh, hello Wormtail."

"The girls have a Charms Club meeting," Peter says, sticking his head around the door without actually entering the room, "so we thought tonight'd be the perfect opportunity to go back to the Mews."

Sirius is already standing up and walking to the door before Peter finishes. "Coming, Moony?"

"I can't," he says, waving his Arithmancy paper at Sirius. "I have to redo this. You all go on, though," he says when Sirius hesitates. "But I expect you to save me my share of the hellebore for later."

"WORMTAIL! ARE THEY COMING?"

"Better not keep Prongs waiting," Sirius says with a smile. Before following Peter out, Sirius blows Remus a kiss, and then closes the door behind them.

Taking a fresh sheet of parchment, he dips his quill in green ink and starts on the first problem. And even though Sirius hasn't shown any of his workings or indicated _how_ he arrived at the answer, Remus finds that it is easier to do the problem when he knows what he is working towards.

It is the same for the second question, and he realises that this is probably why Vector hadn't marked which of his answers were right and which wrong. Jumping ahead to the bottom of the sheet, he tackles the difficult question, flicking his textbook open to a copy of the medieval alchemical symbols.

_Aries.__ Aries is associated with decomposition through calcination,_ he reads, copying it out onto the parchment. _Why are sulphur and salt... _He is almost cross-eyed looking at the symbols on the page, when he notices that the modern symbol for Venus is the same as the medieval symbol for copper.

_Copper! Not Venus,_ he thinks, feeling infinitely better about his paper. _And copper is calcined through a combination of... Sulphur and salt! Which gives…_

Even with the difficult problem, he is able to work relatively quickly towards Sirius' answer. Grabbing the paper he handed in to Vector, he picks up a quill and walks out, heading for the Mews.

"...were saying that it's because you drove all the pretty ones away," Sirius is saying, as James and Peter laugh.

"Mooooooooooony," Peter says, spotting him as he climbs out of the trapdoor. "See, I told you we needed to save some for him. I'm not going back to Slughorn's study for more. Not in my condition, and not unless…" Peter starts to say before he subsides into laughter.

"Hello," Sirius says, looking up at him. He's sprawled on his back, smiling up at Remus and meeting his gaze, even though their faces appear upside down to one another. "Finished already?"

"He can't be," James says firmly. "I set a record on that paper. Fifty minutes, and that doesn't include time spent looking up the Mayan Calendar."

"Time spent looking up things _has _to be included, prat," Sirius says peacefully. "Which means that _I _was the one that set a record. Eighty minutes, and that's – "

"_Eighty _minutes? I only spent five minutes looking up – "

"_And that's including_ a twenty minute kitchen raid," Sirius finishes triumphantly, before he starts to giggle. "But you're right, Prongs. Moony can't have finished his paper in fifteen minutes. Even if it _is _his second go," he adds, as he sits up. "Why're you here, Moony?"

"Don't change the subject, Padfoot. You're still ten minutes off my record," James says, poking Sirius in the side with a toe.

"Your record's rubbish," Sirius says, overbalancing and laughing and laughing and laughing. "Eighty less twenty less fifty less five is five, not ten. If you can't count to _ten_, how can you possibly be trusted to know how long it took to you to – "

James growls something inaudible before launching himself at Sirius, and then the two of them go rolling across the roof in a tangle of flailing limbs and curse words.

"It isn't just the amount of time taken," he says, raising his voice so that they can hear him over their giggling. He can put up with James being Sirius' best friend, but he will not tolerate the two of them wrestling where he has to see it. _Regardless _of how much hellebore they've smoked. "You also have to factor in who got the most questions right."

That gets their attention. Both of them look up with identical expressions of affront.

"How _dare _you!" James says, sounding uncannily like Sirius at his most haughty.

"I don't get questions wrong!" Sirius says, a faintly hysterical edge to his voice.

_Not unless they're about fucking at any rate_. Sirius' remark about this paper being his 'second go' had struck a nerve.

"I need you to write out the answers for the paper," he says, without bothering to explain why.

Sirius untangles himself from James and crawls over to Remus with exaggerated care, as though he expects to fall over again at any moment.

"Will you do it?"

"Don't ask _him_," James says. He starts to stand with a determined expression, and wobbles slightly before he's able to make his way to Sirius and Remus. "We'll be here all night. _I'll _do it," he says, holding his hand out for Remus' paper.

"You can _both _do it," Peter suggests. "That way, we'll know who's faster."

Sirius reaches up and snatches the quill out of Remus' hand and then turns to James. "You don't have anything to write with," he taunts, as he waves the quill about.

"_You _don't have anything to write _on_," James replies, waving the parchment back at him.

"Here," Peter says, passing the cigarette to Remus. "You'd better catch up if you're going to wait for the pair of them to come back to Earth."

He settles tiredly next to Peter and takes the cigarette, inhaling deeply as he watches Sirius and James start another wrestling match. Both the quill and the parchment lie forlornly on the roof, utterly forgotten.

"They'll get to it eventually," Peter says optimistically.

He can't bring himself to care, as he feels the hellebore starting to take effect already – potions and pills always get into his blood more quickly than they do for the others.

"At least we'll settle for once and all which of them is cleverer," he says, smiling.

"I can't help but notice that my genius is being overlooked," Peter says, taking the cigarette back from him. "They might have finished their Arithmancy homework in under an hour, but I had the good sense not to take Arithmancy and it only took me five minutes to do my paper for Divination."

"Then that means _you're _the cleverest!" he declares.

The expressions on Sirius' and James' faces when they hear what he's said _more _than make up for the miserable day he's had.

~*~

_ **Tuesday** _

"There won't be any bells. Or any of this having to get down to breakfast by 7:30 or starve. I keep thinking it'll be like the holidays, except it'll be forever. What about you?"

"I haven't really thought about it," Remus says, glaring at something on his parchment and fiercely scratching it out. Their last class for the day let out half an hour ago, and Remus has been shut up in his study ever since.

"But... You must have _some _idea of what life will be like after school," he says, making himself comfortable on Remus' bed, while Remus continues to frown at his homework.

"Sirius, I've barely thought about what I'll do once N.E.W.T.s are over," Remus replies, without looking up from his work. "Well, perhaps apart from getting very, very drunk," Remus adds in an undertone. "There's a good two weeks between my last exam and the Leaving Feast."

"Right," he says, not encouraged by Remus' response but determined to keep trying.

_See, because after we finish here, I was wondering if you'd move in with me? And I don't mind if you've no money or no job. Well, no, obviously I'll **mind **because that can't be pleasant for you, but it won't mean I want to live with you any less. _

They've the afternoon off, and he's hoping to persuade Remus to make a quick trip to Hogsmeade with him. And if they can get to Hogsmeade in the next half an hour, they can Floo through to London, and… "But what if – "

"Please, Padfoot," Remus says, looking pained. "I _really _don't want to think about it. I'll be lucky if I get through N.E.W.T.s in one piece."

"How are you going with your Arithmancy paper?" he says instead, knowing better than to force the issue. _Maybe I should just write him a note... _"Almost finished?"

He tells himself that there'll be plenty of opportunity to discuss this later, and ignores the annoying voice that tells him there are less than two months to go until N.E.W.T.s and the end of term.

"Okay…" Remus says, oblivious to his turmoil. "But this last one won't work out at all. It's been driving me crazy. Here, maybe you can help me with it. The question references the Venus Cycle, so I used the Mayan Calendar. I'm not able to get the same answer as you for the first part. And when I use your solution for the forecasting in the second part, my dates go out to the year 2045."

"2045? Can't do. The Mayan Calendar finishes in 2012."

"Yes. I know that," Remus says patiently. "So obviously I'm doing something wrong. Can you take a look?"

He takes the parchment from Remus and sees the error at once. "Your answer to part one's right. Mine's the one that's wrong. Venus rotates clockwise – I keep forgetting that," he says, working out the correct answer in his head before scribbling it in. "So then, if you put this into the second part, you get... There. 7 May 2008."

"You forgot that?" Remus looks at him in shock. "Sirius, even first years know that every planet but Venus rotates counter-clockwise!"

"Well, yes," he says, not taking offence at Remus' tone. "It was only one mistake." _It wasn't as though **I **had to redo the entire paper.****_

"I thought you didn't get questions wrong?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said that, last night, when I suggested – Oh, never mind. Fuck, I've wasted most of the night trying to work out where I went wrong, when all along – "

He's relieved that he doesn't have to hear about what happened last night. For some reason, he has a memory of wrestling with James at some point, but he also remembers that Remus was there at the time, and _that _can't be right. Remus would have either found a reason to forcibly pull him away from James, or sulked for the rest of the night, and neither of things appear to have happened.

His memories from later in the night are quite a bit clearer, if only because Peter and Remus wouldn't let either he or James have any more hellebore until they'd calmed down a bit and done Remus' Arithmancy homework.

** _Re_ ** _done Remus' Arithmancy homework…_

"Is that the last of your prep?" he asks hopefully.

"It's most of it. But I thought I'd also redo my Transfiguration essay and give it to McGonagall so that – "

"But you passed that!"

"I got an 'A', Sirius. I want to resubmit it and ask her if she'd consider giving it a 'O'."

"McGonagall won't do that," he says, not sure where this idea has come from. Remus has always been more studious than he and James and Peter, but of late, it's turned into an obsession. _Fuck, bad enough you have to be asked to redo homework. Why would you **voluntarily **redo something? _"Besides, if she'd wanted you to resubmit it, she'd have – "

"No, I don't mean she'd change my mark. I just want her to tell me if the revised essay is O-standard."

"Oh..." he says, before giving up. "So... You'll be busy this afternoon?"

"Yes, why?" Remus asks, finally setting aside his parchment and quill, and meeting his gaze.

"No particular reason."

_You can always ask him later. You've already changed your mind about living in a Muggle area. There's no point annoying him about where he wants to live after school when you haven't made up your own mind._

Four months earlier, and at his wits' end, he wrote into an advice column, asking how best to broach the subject with his boyfriend. Even though he's faithfully purchased the column every month since then, there's not been a response as yet.

_New issue comes out tomorrow... _

"I was hoping to spend it with you," he says honestly, moving over and sitting in Remus' lap. If the latest issue has an answer to his query, he'll be in a better position to put his question to Remus.

_And if it doesn't, then... I'll worry about that later_.

"Think you can afford a twenty minute break from the books?" he asks, before taking Remus' face in both hands and kissing him.

"Yeah, I can do twenty minutes," Remus says when he pulls away for air.

"What are you going to doing for the rest of the day?"

Remus does something with his legs that makes Sirius bounce in his lap, and then he pulls Sirius closer, aligning their bodies so that Remus' prick is poking up just behind Sirius' balls.

"Well. To start with, I was hoping I could persuade my boyfriend to treat me to that striptease he owes me," Remus says, breathing the words against Sirius' throat.

He grins and grinds his body down onto Remus, and Remus' pupils get so big that there's only the smallest sliver of blue-green iris left in each eye.

"You need to show me how it's done, first," he says, lifting himself away from Remus' mouth so that he can undo the collar-fastening on Remus' robe.

"No time," Remus murmurs. "I've a study session in half an hour, but after that..."

"A study _session_?" What new madness was this? "What, like an organised… _thing_ with other students?"

"Mmm. Going through some Transfiguration problems," Remus says, moving back so he can look at Sirius.

"Oh, I see. We're not good enough for you to study with anymore?"

"Not for Transfiguration. I only have to bring up the subject and the three of you pretend to fall into a coma." He slumps against Remus and pretends to snore. "See! This is exactly what I was talking about."

"I help you with your Transfiguration," he says, resting his cheek against Remus' shoulder and kissing Remus' neck.

"No, Sirius, you offer to do my Transfiguration for me. It's not the same thing. Look," he says, waiting until Sirius raises his head and looks at him. "I've half an hour. I don't want to spend it discussing Transfiguration," Remus says firmly, before doing that thing with his legs again and winding his arms tight around Sirius' waist.

"Oh yes? How do you want to spend it, then?"

"I'll show you."

Forty minutes later, Remus is scrambling to get dressed as he realises that he's going to be late.

"It's only ten minutes," Sirius says, stretching out naked across Remus' bed. "They haven't even sent someone to look for you yet."

"Stop _lounging_ at me like that or I'll be a lot later," Remus says, turning his back on him as he determinedly yanks his trousers up.

"I _meant _that ten minutes is practically on time for you," he teases, laughing.

"Oh, shut up, Padfoot. I'll sort you out later," Remus promises as he grabs his Transfiguration things before running out.

He takes his time getting dressed and lets himself out of Remus' study.

He doesn't much feel like going all the way to London on his own. The whole point of taking Remus with him was so that he could drag Remus along to view one of the apartments on his list. Not in a way that showed that he'd _planned_ it or thought about it or anything...

But they would just happen to walk past an apartment block that would just happen to have a flat for let that would just happen to be available for viewing as they were walking past it – and certainly not because Sirius had contacted the agent and asked him to open it for inspection and actually, he'd better Floo him straight away and let him know to cancel – and upon inspection the flat would just _happen _to be perfect in every way.

_Right._

This would all be a lot easier if he had any indication of what Remus was looking for in a flat. _If he's even thinking about a flat.__ Or would he prefer a house? But then it would have to be outside of London… What if he doesn't want to live in London?_

James had persuaded him to reconsider living in a Wizarding area over breakfast the previous day. When they'd looked through the brochures that he'd obtained from the Muggle agents, he'd realised that the kitchens and bathrooms looked totally unfamiliar to him.

And living in a Wizarding area would be possible if the lease, the Floo and the magical licence were in Remus' name, rather than his own. His family wouldn't be able to find him just by looking through the Floo listing.

At the same time, the Wizarding property agents are a hundred times worse than the Muggle ones. They _know_ who he is, they know that he's young and they also know that he has a lot of money to spend. It also doesn't help that in the _one day _since he made the initial enquiry, he's already received twenty owls from them, telling him to hurry up before all of the best properties are snapped up by someone else. He isn't sure about the extent to which they're saying that because it's true, and the extent to which they're trying to push him into signing something.

He forgets to knock before opening the door to the dorm and walks in on Peter and McKinnon. Fortunately, they're both fully dressed.

"You might knock," McKinnon says, as though she has any business being here.

"You might engage in that sort of carry-on at Madam Puddifoots the way decent people do," he snaps back, not really in the mood to put up with McKinnon's nonsense, and then immediately regrets it because he doesn't want to upset Peter. "Sorry, Wormtail. I'll only be a moment."

"What would you know about decency, Black?" McKinnon challenges. "Besides, it wasn't as though Peter and I were – "

"I don't need or want details," he says, without looking at her. Instead, he searches through his trunk for the Floo address of the agent he was supposed to have met this afternoon. "I assume you want me to sleep somewhere else tonight?"

"Yes, that would be – "

"I was actually speaking to Wormtail, thanks McKinnon. I'd prefer if he answered me himself," he says, lifting out the folder he keeps all his property information in. "Otherwise I'll worry that he's being pushed around by – "

"That'd be great, Padfoot, thanks," Peter says quickly as McKinnon glares at Sirius.

"You're welcome," he says, locking his trunk and standing up. "Have a nice night, both of you."

He leaves quickly before McKinnon can say anything. _Fuck, but she **grates**. _He can't understand what Peter sees in her. Or what James saw in her.

"Evicted _again_?" James asks, standing in the doorway of his study. "And McKinnon thinks that _we _push _him _around," he adds, without waiting for Sirius' nod. "What have you got there?"

"Package from Lloyd Langley's," he says, opening the folder for James to see.

"The leasing agent?"

"Mmm."

"See, now this is much more like it," James says, removing one of the scrolls and activating the charm on it. "Much more informative than those flat, folded Muggle scrolls.” The two-dimensional sketch of the apartment block shimmers into three-dimensions as the charm takes effect, growing up from the flat surface of the parchment.

"Oh, it gets better than that," he says, taking out one of the fingernail sized phials as he follows James into the Head Boy's study. "Look," he says, opening the phial to release the silvery memory trapped inside. "Is your desk always such a tip? I need something flat to pour this onto."

James irritably flicks his wand at his desk, and all of his rubbish flows off to one side like a receding tide. When it's clear, Sirius pours the memory out onto the desk, watching as it spreads over the dark wood like frost.

"Okay, now you come here," he says, beckoning James closer, "and touch your wand to the surface at the same time as me."

They tumble through into the memory.

"Welcome to Lloyd Langley's Property Management!"

Picking themselves up off the floor, they instinctively brush off their robes for any dust, and turn to face the smiling wizard who is dressed in the violet and green Langley's uniform.

"My name is Simon Langley. You will be viewing Apartment 48 of 86 Circe Square. Number 86 has been a popular address for wizards and witches of all types since the late 1800s."

"Odd thing to say. What does he mean by 'all types'?"

"It's code for 'Mudbloods welcome'," James sneers. "But of course, it wouldn't be _polite _to put it that way."

" – look around the entry foyer," Simon babbles on, "and as you can see, the floor surface is aged marble that was originally quarried in – "

"Nobody cares where the marble was quarried. Fuck, we can't make him shut up, can we?" James asks.

"No. It's his memory. Imagine. This is just one of a whole series of memories of himself _talking _to himself in an empty building."

"But pretending that he's talking to us," James says, deliberately walking around behind Simon. Simon continues to face in the same direction, talking animatedly as though they're all in the same place at the same time.

"No, he's pretending he's talking to someone a lot more rich and posh than the two of us.”

"Stuck up bastard. Hey, Padfoot, look at this!"

"Stop feeling up the sales wizard, Prongs," he says, turning away with a smile.

"My hand goes straight through him! Look," James says, moving around to the front and putting his hand through Simon's crotch so that it looks as though Simon has James' hand coming out of his bottom. "D'you suppose he's Lloyd's son?" James asks, while making grabby motions at Sirius with his hand. "Or his brother?"

"Come away from there," he says, trying to keep a straight face. "The memory only lasts ten minutes." Abruptly, Simon walks through James and starts up the stairs to get to the apartment.

"How many more of these have you got?"

"They sent over twenty. I doubt I'll need to see all of th – What just happened?" As soon as they reached the landing, the memory had flickered.

"Everything's gone all fuzzy. Oh, I see. This is a manufactured memory," James says, smiling wickedly. "Fucking property managers – can't trust them an inch. Bad Simon! No commission!" James adds, pretending to switch Simon with his wand as they follow after him.

He tries to keep a straight face, snorting with the effort of not laughing.

"I don't know why you bother," James says, turning to face him. "There's nobody here but us."

Simon continues his never ending patter, this time exhorting the wonders of the hall rug, which was apparently woven by ancient Persian wizards, and would turn into a magic carpet in the event of a fire, flooding or natural disaster striking the apartment building.

"What a boring bastard," James mutters under his breath, as Simon opens the door to the number 48. "This is why nepotism is simply not – Wow," James breathes, as they walk into the apartment. "This is a _nice _place. If this is what it actually looks like," he adds judiciously.

Once they're through, they can ignore Simon and they take their time wandering through the rest of the apartment.

"The view's pretty special."

"This view's fake," he says, looking through the main bedroom windows.

"How can you tell?"

"If you look straight ahead, you can see Merlin's Fountain. And across from that is the glass dining room of the Palais."

"Right…"

"Well, we had dinner there when Regulus turned ten. And I remember Father pointing out the Wenlock Museum, because I'd just started Arithmancy that year. It was _exactly _across the square from the Palais. Where we're standing now."

"That was a couple of years ago, though."

"A couple of years, Prongs. Regulus may look older than he is, but he didn't turn ten in the late 1800s, I assure you."

James looks over at Simon with a furious expression before he remembers that he can't tell Simon off in his own memory.

"Are you _sure _you don't want to just stay at mine for longer? Father's always said that renting was a waste of money. Come and stay with us, and you can look into buying something outright when something decent turns up for sale."

He bites his lip. It's one thing to ask Remus to share a lease with him. It's quite another thing to ask Remus to go halves on buying a place, particularly when Remus doesn't have much money of his own.

_And even if you could afford it for both of you, would he agree to it? He might prefer to live with his mother, rather than let you look after him like that. _

"Or contact your uncle's solicitor. This is what you pay him for, isn't it? I don't think your uncle would have kept an idiot on retainer. Get your solicitor to go see Langley, or no, someone more reputable for preference, and organise a contract that – "

"It doesn't have to be done right now," he says, aware that he's starting to sound like Remus. "I'm only trying to get ideas, really."

It hadn't occurred to him to look for somewhere to live until the beginning of the last summer holidays. It's certainly not something he has any knowledge about or experience in. Growing up as the heir to the House of Black, his name was already down to inherit the townhouse on Grimmauld Place, and the Blacks' country estates in Stafford and Wiltshire.

When he and James had arrived at the Potters' at the start of the break, James had raced off to put his things in his room while James' mother had led Sirius to the guest room. It had hit him then that he couldn't spend the rest of his life living like this.

When he'd started to give some thought to how he _should _spend the rest of his life, he found that he wasn't entirely sure about anything, only that he wanted Remus to be a part of it.

"Thank fuck for that. I don't think I can take much more of this," James says.

Simon comes into the room, stands with his back to them, and gestures behind him to the window, asking them to take in the spectacular view.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he says, reaching for James' hand and pulling them out of the memory.

He jumps down from James' desk once they're out, regarding the remaining phials with distaste. "There's no way I'm going through any more of these.” Apart from anything else, he's not sure he's comfortable asking Remus to move in with him into a place that James has seen before Remus has seen it. "Why did they bother with these if they're only going to lie about it all?"

"Looks more impressive as a memory than if they just lie on parchment," James says. "Look, here," he says, pointing to something written on the parchment. "It's for witches and wizards who're too busy to stop by their office, or go and inspect their properties in person." James snorts again. "Which is code for witches and wizards who're too _stupid _to inspect the properties in person before signing a lease.”

"Thanks for coming with me," he says, shovelling the materials back into the folder higgledy-piggledy. He doesn't intend to refer to any of it without speaking to Alphard's solicitor.

"Ah, it's all right. Want to play some Quidditch one-on-one?"

"No plans for the afternoon?"

"Thought I had some," James says, "but Lily said she'd help Moony tutor the third years in Transfiguration."

"_Moony's _doing the tutoring?" he says before he can stop himself.

"I couldn't believe it either. But it _is _only third year Transfiguration. He should be able to manage that. Anyway. She's helping him prepare a lesson plan or something. I offered to do it myself, but they told me to stay out of it because I was rubbish at Transfiguration. Me! I almost turned into a stag then and there to show her the error of her ways."

He looks at James in disbelief, wondering why Remus or Evans would say something like that. He also can't understand why Remus would insist on leading the session himself when he has so little time for other things.

_When he has so little time for **me**_.

"So," James says, shrugging it off. "Quidditch?"

He hopes that playing will work off some of his temper, but when they get back to his Gryffindor Tower, his anger surges up all over again.

There in the common room, in front of the fire, is Remus. He's seated with his back to the fire, and there are eight students in a semi‑circle in front of him, all listening avidly to what he's saying and scribbling down notes. Evans is sitting to one side, and she looks up as he and James enter.

"Don't tell me the two of you frittered away the afternoon playing Quidditch?" she says, walking over to them.

"Not _all _of the afternoon," James says, winding an arm around Evans' waist.

"I told you I was only going to be gone for an hour," Evans says, before she gives James a quick kiss. "But as you've your broom with you, you can come up to _my _study for a change."

The stairs to the girls' dormitories are warded to prevent boys from climbing them, but none of them can fathom why the Founders bothered. James is far from the first boy to work out that when you can fly, warded stairs are a trivial obstacle.

He doesn't really notice the two of them leaving, because that's when Remus looks up, sees him and smiles. One of the stupid third years chooses that precise moment to start yapping at Remus, but Remus doesn't notice her or look away from Sirius until she reaches forward and tugs at his sleeve.

**_Why _**_are you tutoring the third years? Why are you giving away your free afternoon to do it?_

He turns on his heel and stomps up the stairs, only belatedly remembering that Peter and McKinnon are in the dorm. He hammers on the door before barging in, but once again, they're both fully dressed. And this time, rather than snogging, they seem to be doing homework.

Earlier, when he'd gone in to get his broom, the curtains had been closed and the dorm was so silent that it mean that they'd cast an Imperturbable for privacy.

"Are you going to be coming in and out all – " McKinnon starts to say, before he cuts her off.

"This is the seventh year _boys' _dormitory. I don't mind you staying over. I _do _mind you acting as though you're the one doing me a favour every time I walk in here. This is where I keep all my things. This is where I am supposed to sleep. I am entitled to come in here whenever I fucking want to. I don't need _your_ permission."

He should have seen this coming, but all of the other times he's left the dorm to Peter, it's because he's had plans with Remus. Certainly, he'd been doing Peter a favour, but by asking him to leave, Peter had also unwittingly been doing _him _a favour, by giving him an excuse to sleep in Remus' study.

Tonight, when he's too angry to even look at Remus, he'll have to find somewhere _else _to sleep, and if McKinnon doesn't shut up, he _will_ hex her.

Grabbing a change of clothing out of his trunk, he slams it shut and leaves without saying goodnight to either Peter or McKinnon, heading for the bathroom.

And of course, it's just as he reaches the bathroom that he runs into Remus.

"Hey there," Remus says, catching him and hauling him into the bathroom. "I'm all done with homework for the day, and I thought that – "

"Get off," he snarls, squirming free of Remus' grip.

Remus looks startled. "What's the matter?"

"You weren't doing homework. You were tutoring fucking third years!"

"Yes," Remus says, still looking puzzled. "What of it?"

He draws a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. "You don't have time for me because you're so busy revising and redoing your assignments." Remus face darkens as Sirius speaks. "But you can spare half a day for the third years? You didn't even need to do it! Prongs had the afternoon spare, too. He could have – "

"Prongs couldn't teach Transfiguration to save himself, Sirius. And for that matter, neither could you."

"I beg your pardon? Prongs is a hundred times better at Transfiguration than you _or _Evans!"

"I'm not disputing that," Remus snaps. "I'm saying that he's lousy at _teaching_ it. It's not enough to show the third years how it's done, you have to go to some trouble to ensure that they can do it for themselves."

"Oh, not _this_ again," he says before he can stop himself. It is the Arithmancy paper all over again. It isn't enough to know the answers. Nothing is ever fucking enough.

Remus glares at him, and opens his mouth to argue, but he goes on before Remus can say anything. "All right, fine, _maybe _Prongs couldn't have tutored the third years as well as you. I still don't see why _you _had to do it when you barely have time for your own homework."

"When I barely have time for _you_, you mean,” Remus snaps, before sighing. "Sometimes it's possible to learn something if you have to explain it to someone else."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"It does," Remus says defensively. "If you're explaining something to someone else, you have to make sure they understand it. And if they don't understand the first time, you have to use different words, or a different way of getting through to them. And you can't do that unless you fully understand the material yourself."

"It's _third year _Transfiguration, Remus. You got an O on your Transfiguration O.W.L., for fuck's sake! What could you possibly learn from a bunch of third years that you don't already know?"

"Sirius, I don't expect you to understand, but – "

"And did it have to be _tonight_?"

"Of course it had to be tonight," Remus says, looking at Sirius as though he is deranged. "They've a test on Thursday.”

"That's two days from now!"

Remus stares in him in disbelief, before saying, "Fuck, you really don't understand at all, do you?"

"No, of course I don't," he says, fed up with being talked to like this. "Why would I? I'm the one who _struggles_ to understand things, after all. _I'm _the one that loses track of the lesson in Transfiguration. _I'm _the one who needs my boyfriend to write out the answers to a paper I've been made to resubmit." Remus flinches as though he's been slapped. "_I'm _the one – "

" – who's a needy little bitch when it suits him, but the instant his boyfriend needs some attention, he turns into an uptight, precious – "

"I wasn't being a needy little anything! I hadn't seen you for a week, and I was trying to show you that I'd _missed _you, you insufferable – "

"Oh, spare me. You hadn't been back five minutes before you were begging me to – "

"You're right, if I'd waited five and a _half _minutes, you'd have been begging _me,_" he snaps back.

"You still begged me first," Remus says, sounding so insufferably smug that Sirius wants to kick him. "And you know _why_ you begged me first? I'll give you a clue: it involves the words 'needy', 'little', and — "

"Well, you can be sure it won't happen again," he says, struggling to regain his dignity. Remus snorts in disbelief. "It _won't_. You'll come crawling to me before I even look at you again. In fact, I'll bet I can last longer without – "

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Sirius. Do I look like James Potter to you? I'm not turning this into a fucking contest."

"That's because you know you won't win."

"We'll see about that. What do I get if I win?"

"But you _won't_ win, Remus."

A muscle in Remus' jaw spasms, and his fists clench. "What does the _winner_ get, then?"

He thinks about this. "I don't know. Let's say... Whoever loses has to do everything the other one says for the rest of the month."

"The month's almost over," Remus points out.

"Well, I don't want you to suffer _too _much when you inevitably lose."

"So you won't mind extending it until the end of the term?"

"Of course not. Starting from right now," he says, "if you try it on with me, then you lose."

"Right now? You don't want to do it one last time before we – "

"Careful, Remus," he says sweetly. "Ask me again and you'll be doing as I say for the rest of the term."

"Oh, you're impossible," Remus growls.

He's had enough of this.

"Would you get out? I need to bathe and change." He's barely finished the sentence when Remus storms out and slams the door closed behind him.

When he's finished bathing and dressing, it occurs to him that he can't really go back to the dorm. James is over in the girls' side of the Tower, in Evans' study. While it's unlikely that James will actually spend the night there, he doesn't want James waking him up or tripping over him or hexing him when he finally returns to his own study. Which leaves...

_Fuck._

Sighing, he goes over to Remus' study and knocks on the frame of the portrait.

"He's not in," the Silver Warlock says, as he steps into frame. "But he said you could go in if you knew the password."

"Snidget," he says, wondering where Remus could have gone.

Once he's in, he tosses his dirty clothes into Remus' laundry basket. He has no doubt that he's going to win the bet, but since it's unlikely that Remus will cave tonight, there's a good chance he'll have to transform and sleep in that laundry basket tonight.

For the moment, he elects to stay up and wait for Remus. As with James, the last thing he wants is Remus tripping over him in the dark.

After ten minutes of sitting on Remus' bed and waiting, it is clear that wherever Remus has gone, he isn't going to be back soon. He glances over Remus' desk, which is scattered with parchment and books. Remus is as messy as James, and the fact that his desk is strewn with study materials doesn't necessarily mean that he'll be back soon.

The enormous pile of study notes and place markers is slightly smaller than when he assembled it the other morning. On closer inspection, he sees that Remus has started to break down the pile into smaller groups.

_By subject, looks like..._ The piles of parchment for Transfiguration and for Arithmancy are several times the size of the next biggest pile, which is for Charms. Since he has nothing better to do, he reaches for a handful of notes from the large pile and starts splitting them up across the smaller piles.

_Arithmancy, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Charms, Transfiguration, Transfiguration..._

He's more than half-way through the pile when he realises that he's been waiting here for over an hour.

_The Warlock said he was coming back... Didn't he?_

He decides to check. Yawning, he stands up and yanks the door open. "Oi, you. Warlock. Whatever your name is," he calls, knocking on the frame once more.

"What is it?" the Warlock asks as he pokes his head into the frame.

He has a horrible suspicion that the Warlock may not be wearing anything other than his pointy, silver hat.

"What time's Remus coming back?"

"What time..." the Warlock says sleepily before yawning. "Doesn't normally say. Look, he said to let you in, but I usually have this time of the month off, and – "

"Well, did he say where he would be?"

All signs of sleepiness vanish from the Warlock's face as he fixes Sirius with a shrewd look. "If you don't know where he can normally be found at this time of the month, then there's no hope for you."

_This time of the – Fucking hell! The Shack!_

Remus usually heads over to the Shack the night before the night of Full. He doesn't actually transform until Full, but he's so impatient and irritable and _unbearable _that he takes himself away so that he doesn't upset anybody else.

_Fucking hell, no wonder he was such a grumpy bastard. Full's tomorrow. And I forgot all about it._

Quite apart from his irritability, Remus' sexual appetite practically quadruples on the night before Full. Every month without fail, he usually spends the night with a persistent erection that won't quit unless he fucks someone.__

Remus' words earlier, about how he _had _to tutor the third years tonight suddenly make sense. Remus would be in no position to tutor them tomorrow, the night of Full, and he'd be in no condition to do it the day after, the night after Full. And after that, they were getting into the weekend.

_Fuck, you really don't understand at all, do you, _Remus had said. _And I didn't. I was horrible to him. I am an awful, awful boyfriend. _No wonder Remus had looked so wounded when Sirius had said that the bet was starting tonight.

He's through the trapdoor, up on the roof, and away on his motorbike in record speed.

He blames the holidays. Normally, he can handle Remus at this time of the month because he knows not to take anything Remus says to heart. But with the holidays, he lost track of the full moon. He really should have known better than to take Remus' behaviour over the last two days – and it _has _only been two days – personally.

_This is what he's like. This is what he is,_ he tells himself as he pilots his motorbike toward Hogsmeade. _And I still want that. I still want **him**_. Because the two or three days of the month that he wants to throttle Remus are more than made up for by the rest of the month.

_He didn't panic at all when he got stuck inside me. Even though I was frightened. He knew exactly how to handle it. How to handle **me**. _

And their abortive attempt at fucking on that first night back hadn't hurt just Sirius. _It's extremely selfish of your arse to try to tear it off and hoard it to itself forever, _Remus had said. But they hadn't done anything about Remus poor, hurt cock. Remus had spent the rest of the night soothing him, and making _him _feel better.

_He did all the work. He always does. All you ever do is lie there. And when he slept in and had trouble getting ready for class, you were horrible to him. Again. _

If Remus has been neglecting him, then it can only be because something is bothering Remus. Something important. And the least Sirius can do is find out what it is, and try to reassure him.

_Or help him. If I can. If he'll let me._

He parks the bike in the shadows and races up to Remus' room.

"Remus?"

"Sirius? What are you doing here?"

"_Lumos_."

"Put that out!" Remus says irritably, covering his eyes with one hand.

"I'm sorry. I need to see you."

"Oh, I see. Come to – _ah – _concede defeat already?"

"Yes."

Remus snorts. "Don't patronise me, Sirius."

"I'm not. I know how you get just before Full, and – "

"And you made the bet anyway because... Oh, _fuck_... Because you thought I'd crack first? Well, it's not going to happen."

"It's worse than that," he starts to say, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge of the mattress. It's then that he notices that Remus is writhing frantically underneath the covers, making the mattress rock with each movement. "Do you need some help with that?"

"Fuck off, Sirius. You're not going to win that easily. I'm not going to jump you just because you're here. I may get – _ah – _worked up before Full, but that doesn't mean that – "

"I told you, it's worse than that. I completely forgot that it was the night before Full. "

Remus meets his gaze, something that is made even more unnerving by the fact that he is still grinding against the mattress, and then laughs, looking up at the ceiling. "Wish I could forget Full was coming up. You're right. It is worse. Sirius, _go away_. I don't need you coming here and flaunting your long legs and your perfect arse and – "

"I didn't come here to flaunt anything," he says calmly. "And before you say it, I'm not a needy little bitch, either. I'm your boyfriend, and I love you." The corners of Remus' lips turn downwards before Remus turns away from him and whines. He reaches out and strokes his fingers through Remus' hair. "Don't you want me to stay?"

"No," Remus groans, still refusing to meet his gaze. Sirius climbs onto the bed and straddles Remus. "Sirius, for the last time, would you please – "

He leans forward and kisses Remus.

"There. You win. I lose," he says. Remus pulls him back down immediately for more kissing. "You win," he says again.

"You're just doing this because you feel sorry for me.”

"I'm not.”

"You are. You didn't really believe for a moment that you'd lose and neither did I. You don't need to have me fuck you right now.”

"All right, so I don't need it. So what?”

"Because I need it. And that means that... That means that I want you more than you want me.”

"It doesn't. It might mean that you want... Well, that you want sex more than I do, but that doesn't mean that you want _me _more than I want you. Anyway. Maybe I don't need for you to fuck me, but I want it. And that means that you win.”

"You'll do everything I say for the rest of the term?”

"Yes.”

"Even if I say I want you to go away now?”

He doesn't hesitate before saying, "Yes. Even if you say that.” Remus doesn't respond. "_Are _you going to tell me to go away?”

"I win? For real?"

"Mmm," he murmurs, lifting up so that he can pull the covers off Remus.

"I have to say, I wasn't _sure_ you'd lose," Remus says, grinning and pulling him close. "But I _was_ certain you'd last longer than two hours." 

~*~

_**The Tuesday after that**_

"Moony?"

"Mmmph."

"Moony, are you awake?"

"Nnn."

"I've coffee..."

As soon as Sirius says the word, he can smell it.

He's tempted to wake up and have some, but he's also extremely comfortable right where he is. After staying up until 3 o'clock in the morning preparing his homework for Ancient Runes, an extra half an hour in bed seems preferable to a hot cup of coffee.

But then he's being kissed.

And Sirius tastes like coffee.

And while he's still not prepared to get out of bed, there are parts of him that are very, _very _awake.

"What would you say if I said I wanted to drink all of my coffee like this?"

"From my mouth?" Sirius asks, sounding amused. "I'd say you were disgusting."

"You'd have to do it, if I tell you to. Those are the rules."

"But you haven't told me to. On the other hand," Sirius says, "you _did _tell me to wake you up at 7 o'clock."

"I've changed my mind."

"You told me to ignore you if you said that. "

"Well, now I'm telling you to ignore what I said earlier."

"Remus. Wake up."

"I _am_ awake."

"Open your eyes."

"No. I told you to wake me up at 7 o'clock and you've done it. Now go away and let me – Sirius!" he yelps, as the mattress lifts up to tip him out onto his arse. "You'll pay for that," he growls, twisting around to face him. "Oh," he says stupidly, taking in what Sirius is wearing.

"Here," Sirius says, pouring coffee from the pot into a second mug for Remus, and seemingly oblivious to the fact that his robe is open, that his front is bared, and that even the smallest mishap with the scalding coffee will result in a world of pain.

"Did you go down to the kitchens dressed like that?" he asks, taking the mug from Sirius.

"You told me this was how you wanted me while I was in your study." He only has a vague memory of telling Sirius that. "You didn't say I had to do it outside."

"I should. Teach you a lesson," he says, taking a drink of coffee and grinning to himself as Sirius fidgets nervously. "But I won't. Only because it means that somebody else might get a look at you bare, and I won't put up with that." He closes his eyes and slumps back against the bed frame, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"Did you finish your essay for Runes?"

He opens his eyes again and sets his mug down beside him. "Come here," he says, reaching a hand out for Sirius. When Sirius takes it, he pulls him down onto his lap so that Sirius is kneeling on the floor and straddling Remus' legs at the same time. "I told you I didn't want to talk about N.E.W.T.s or – "

"I wasn't asking about N.E.W.T.s," Sirius says, hissing as Remus slips his hands under Sirius' robe and presses his palms against Sirius' skin. "I was asking about your homework."

"All right, well, now I'm saying you're not to ask me about my homework, either."

Particularly since it was what sparked off their last argument.

To be fair, if it hadn't been his homework that had started the fight, it would have been Sirius' accusation that Remus was ignoring him.

Or the fact that Sirius spent the holidays with James when he could have stayed at school and spent it with Remus.

Or the fact that he is always running late, which apparently means that he thinks that Sirius has nothing better to do than hang about waiting for him to turn up.

Or Sirius' irritating habit of sleeping with the curtains open so that he can see the stars, which is all very well until the sun rises and blinds Remus _every fucking morning_.

Or, when it comes down to it, any of a dozen other petty things that crop up regularly. It's not as though they've ever suffered a shortage of things to fight about.

_But I still want you, _he thinks as Sirius shivers in his lap. _I want **only **you. And we shouldn't have to fight first for me to remember that..._

"Remus, I can help you with – "

"Sirius, they're your rules. You have to do what I say. And not just when you feel like it. I don't want to talk about – "

"You're just saying that because you think called you stupid, but I could – "

"I don't _think_ you called me stupid. You _did_ call me stupid. Or am I too stupid to understand what you've said? The same way I'm too stupid to tutor – "

"That was a horrible thing to have said," Sirius whispers. "And I'm a horrible person for having said it, but Remus, if you'd just let me – "

"Sirius. _Shut up_."

Sirius jaw tightens before he presses his lips together into an extremely unattractive line, and turns his face away.

_Can't have that_.

He leans forward and licks Sirius' mouth. He has to repeat the motion before Sirius allows himself to be kissed.

_Stubborn bastard._  
__

Since he'd wanted to redo his Transfiguration essay, and get up to speed on Runes for the assignment he has to hand in today, he'd told Sirius to leave him alone during the weekend. Sirius had done it – he'd had to – but he hadn't looked particularly pleased about it.

There's a limit to how far he can push this 'you have to do everything I say' privilege, because when Sirius isn't happy, he makes sure that Remus knows about it.

Rather than staying at Hogwarts as Remus'd hoped, Sirius and James spent all of Saturday in London, and all of Sunday shut up in James' study. He doesn't know what Sirius got up to in London, or in James' study, but he suspects that one or the other has something to do with Sirius _finally _performing a flawless striptease for him on Sunday night.

And when he'd asked Sirius where he learned to do that, Sirius had laughed and said that he'd had to find _something _to occupy himself with, since Remus had banished him for the weekend.

He'd asked Sirius again last night, and Sirius had blushed and asked if Remus was ordering him to answer. And so he'd relented and said that Sirius could choose between telling him, or going about half naked whenever he was in Remus' study.

"See," he says, after giving Sirius' mouth one last lick, "the reason I wanted you to wake me up at 7 o'clock wasn't because I wanted you to help me with my homework."

"No? Was it because you wanted me to help you with this?" Sirius asks, reaching between their bodies and cupping Remus' erection through the fabric of his pyjamas.

"Don't be crude, Sirius," he teases, regretting his words instantly when Sirius' expression flickers with hurt. He moves one of his hands from Sirius' side to Sirius' cock, rolling it across his palm and squeezing gently until Sirius responds to his touch. "The one thing I regret about starting the day like this is that the rest of the day can only go downhill from here."

"Technically you started your day with me tipping you out of your bed," Sirius points out, smiling at last.

"Mmm," he says, shifting his position on the floor so that he can manage what he wants to do next. "Undo my shirt," he says, stroking Sirius' side.

Sirius removes his hand from Remus' groin, and undoes his pyjama buttons before attempting to slide it from Remus' shoulders.

"That's far enough," he says, shifting underneath Sirius once more. He ignores the impulse to push forward and rub himself against Sirius. Instead, he waits until Sirius relaxes before asking him to remove his pyjama bottoms, placing one hand on the floor and lifting himself up so that Sirius can get the fabric past his hips.

"Come back here," he says, pulling Sirius' body flush against his and finally allowing himself to rub himself against his boyfriend's body. Sirius puts his hand back on Remus' prick and strokes. "Are you going to tell me where you learned that routine?"

"Nnn," Sirius manages, hiding his face against Remus' shoulder. Sirius usually abandons any attempt at conversation when Remus starts to play with him in earnest, and this is no exception.

"I could make you tell me, you know. You'd have to. It's the rules."

He's not sure whether he'd prefer for it to be something Sirius picked up in London or something that Sirius worked on with James. He strongly doubts that it's the latter, but it doesn't pay to underestimate what Sirius and James together are capable of.

"Don't," Sirius says, his face glowing red again.

He sets his hand back on Sirius' side and gently manoeuvres Sirius forward and back until Sirius gets the hint and starts to rock against him.

"See, the more you refuse to tell me, the more curious I get." Sirius whines into his shoulder. "Soon it's not going to be enough that I have you half naked while you're in my study. I'll need more."

"You could fuck me," Sirius offers.

"But I was going to fuck you anyway," he says, trying to reach under the pillow for the oil.

"_Oh..._"

"Don't worry, Sirius. I'm sure I'll think of something."

Sirius laughs, and lifts his head from Remus' shoulder. "Here, let me," Sirius says, stretching past Remus to snag the phial.

He opens the phial with one hand and pours the oil straight onto Remus' cock. Sirius' fingers are on him at once, rubbing the oil in. Instead of moving to enter Sirius, however, he pulls Sirius close to him again and wraps both of his hands around their cocks, pressing them together. Sirius wraps his arms around his shoulders and kisses him, still rocking against him with barely a pause.

It isn't long before the kissing and the rocking and the squeezing become too much for both of them, and while he can normally hold on for longer than Sirius, he doesn't see any reason to this time.

"I thought..." Sirius starts to say, before stopping to catch his breath. "I thought you were going to fuck me?"

"Didn't say I was going to do it straight away. Besides, you'll have to beg me first," he says, kissing the tip of Sirius' nose.

"Oh, _will _I?"

"Yes Sirius, you _will,_ because I'll tell you to and you can't refuse me until after N.E.W.T.s." Sirius laughs at that. "What time is it anyway?"

"Ages until our first class."

"I should make you go to Potions like that, half naked and sweaty and smelling like you've just been fucked."

"That'd get me a standing invitation to the Slug Club if nothing else."

After Sirius had run away from home, Slughorn had stopped inviting him to his after-hours gatherings – not that Sirius had ever bothered to go to any of them.

"Don't be revolting, Sirius. Here, reheat my coffee," he says, holding the mug out to Sirius.

Sirius rolls his eyes but does as he's told. "I think you get off more on telling me what to do than you do over anything else I've ever done for you. "

"Tosh. I get off on having you actually _do_ what I tell you to. I can't say that telling you what to do and having you ignore me completely does much for me."

Over the weekend, he'd tried to light the lamp in his study and ended up scorching the entire wall. Fortunately, the wall was stone and fairly resilient, but he'd still had to clean the scorch marks off by hand.

"You'd better get properly dressed."

"Want me to come over before class?"

"No, I'll catch up with you after class this afternoon."

They have the afternoon off, and after the weekend, he's not sure he can get away with neglecting Sirius for an entire afternoon. Not after the last time. Even if it means staying up half the night to get his Defence essay done.

He certainly can't bring himself to do his homework with Sirius there.

_He doesn't think you're stupid_. The trouble is, there are times when he's convinced that Sirius doesn't think at all. It's the same part that keeps pointing out that Sirius entirely forgot about the full moon last week. _But that's what he does. That's who he is. He gets so wrapped up in whatever it is that's bothering him that he's oblivious to the rest of the world. And I know that, and I want him anyway._

"All right, I'll see you later," Sirius says, kissing him before he leaves, belatedly remembering to do up his robes.

He counts to five after the door closes before pulling himself up. His legs are already starting to stick together and he throws his dressing gown on, determined to get to the bathroom while he can still walk. Given the difficulty he's had with his magic of late, he's not about to risk casting even a mild cleaning charm on his private parts.

After bathing, he heads back to his study to get dressed and get his things ready for the day. And it's then that he finds that Sirius has left his wand on his desk.

_Not like him to be so careless,_ he thinks, picking it up and hoping that Sirius is still in his dorm.

"Hey Padfoot," he calls, seeing that the door to Sirius' and Peter's dorm is open. "You left your wand in my study, you stupid – "

He cuts off as he reaches the doorway, just in time to see Sirius slam his trunk shut, and turn to sit on it as he shoots a panicked look at the door. "You left your wand in my study," he says again, holding it out for Sirius.

"Oh. Cheers," Sirius says, not moving off the trunk and holding his hand out for his wand.

"You left it behind in my study, Sirius," he says, making himself smile. _What are you hiding from me? _"The least you could do is get off your arse and take it."

Sirius hesitates before he gets up and walks over to him. Remus pushes past him to his trunk and lifts the lid, or tries to lift the lid, at any rate. The trunk is probably charmed to open at Sirius' hand only, since it's clear that Sirius doesn't need his wand to open it.

"What's inside?"

"Lots of things."

"What's inside that you don't want me to know about?" Sirius doesn't answer him. "Open it."

"Remus – "

"Open it _now_." When Sirius makes no move to comply, he adds, "I'm going to tell you for the last time, Sirius. You agreed to do what I said. I am telling you to open your trunk."

"All right. All _right_," Sirius says, his face flushing with anger. "Here," he says, swinging the lid up. "Help yourself."

There's a layer of clothing on top, and he pushes that away to reveal...

"_Playwitch_? You've been – Sirius! Look at me," he says, slightly more harshly than he intends. "Sirius, have you been wanking off to _Playwitch _because I haven't been paying enough attention to you?" He'd mistaken Sirius' red face for anger when it was embarrassment. Mortification, actually, to look at him.

"It's not what you think."

"Sirius, it's normal," he says, because he should. Even if the thought of Sirius wanking off to someone else fills him with jealousy, it _is _normal.

"No, Remus, I... I wrote into them. For advice. A couple of months ago. And..." Sirius looks away, clearing his throat before he continues. "I've been buying it every month, because I said... I said to print the answer in the magazine, rather than give them a return address."

"Did they answer?"

"They said that decent witches shouldn't ask that sort of thing."

If he laughs, Sirius will never speak to him again.

"I see. I wasn't aware that decent witches were in the habit of purchasing magazines filled with pictures of naked wizards." If Sirius was asking for advice about his boyfriend, it only made sense that he'd pretend he was a girl. _Even so..._ "Well. You can ask me."

"I can't."

"Of course you can."

"You said you don't want me talking to you about N.E.W.T.s, or about what comes next. Or – "

He's genuinely confused now. He can't think of anything that a decent witch shouldn't ask that is in anyway related to N.E.W.T.s.

"They answered in the latest issue? Do you mind if I read it?" Sirius shakes his head and looks away.

He pulls out the most recent issue, dated from only a few days ago and flips through the pages.

"Oh, and if you're still wondering where I learned that routine," Sirius says, still without looking at him, "it's on page eighty‑eight."

He does his best to ignore the wizards that wink and preen at him as he flips through to the advice column at the back.

_Dear Wise Witch,_

_My boyfriend and I have been together for two years now, and I want to ask him to live with me. What's the best way to ask?_

_Yours, _

_S. Night_

And just as Sirius had said, there below it was the Wise Witch's answer, advising him that a 'decent witch' would always wait for her boyfriend to ask _her _rather than the other way around.

_Oh, Sirius_.

He shoves the magazines back under the clothing and stops when they hit something. Shifting the clothes out of the way, he uncovers a leather folder from Lloyd Langley's Leasing Agency.

_Oh, **Sirius**._

He lifts the folder out, carefully covers up the magazines, and reaches out for Sirius. "Tell me about this."

"It's all right, we can talk about it after N.E.W.T.s."

"But I'm asking you to tell me now," he says gently, putting the folder between them. "You've obviously looked into it." Sirius shrugs moodily. "I know that this isn't how you wanted me to find out, but you can talk to me about anything, Sirius."

"Then why can't we talk about N.E.W.T.s? Or your homework? I didn't say you were stupid, not straight out like that, I would _never _say that, and I don't think it anyway."

"Perhaps not, but you thought it was amusing that I had to redo my Arithmancy paper.”

"No, I didn't,” Sirius says firmly.

"You did,” he says, trying not to sound defensive. "You and James kept laughing at the answers I'd submitted when you were redoing my paper for me.”

"Remus, I'd been smoking hellebore. There wasn't much I _wouldn't _have found amusing.” That's true. Perhaps he _is_ being oversensitive. "So. Is it okay to talk about it?”

" Sirius, you're just upset because I don't pay as much attention to you as I want to," he says, regretting not having fucked Sirius earlier. Perhaps it would have forestalled this discussion.

"No. You don't," Sirius says. "And I thought it was because you were going off me. But I don't think you are. I think you're paying less attention to me because something else is bothering you. And you won't tell me what it is. Because it's something to do with N.E.W.T.s."

There's no getting away from it. When Sirius decides to go after something, he doesn't give up easily.

"I can't do basic spells," he says, since it's clear that they're going to have this conversation whether he wants to or not. "You saw what happened when I tried to cast A_ccio _that night you got back from holiday. I got you to reheat my coffee this morning, because when I tried to light one of my lamps on the weekend, I set fire to the wall. I can't do basic spells," he says again, forcing the words past the lump in his throat, "and I've N.E.W.T.s in six weeks, and I'm going to get Ts in everything."

"You're not," Sirius says at once. He laughs, because Sirius is so fiercely, stubbornly loyal. "You're not, you stupid arse."

"Oh, and my boyfriend thinks I'm stupid. He tells me all the time," he says.

"Shut up, Remus, I didn't mean it like that," Sirius says, climbing down from his bed and coming to sit next to him. "Your magic doesn't work because you're upset and stressed. And when it doesn't work, that makes you more upset, and so it works even less. It must happen to twenty students a year. Probably more. Come on, Remus. You know all of this, we learned all about this in first year."

He does vaguely remember McGonagall telling all students that they were to come and see her if they found that they were unable to control their magic, or to make spells work. But that was back in first year. _Nobody _was capable of controlling their magic when they were eleven or twelve, once again, with the exception of James and...

...and Sirius.

"Go and see McGonagall. She probably already suspects, but since we've had all of these essays to do, and very little practical magic – "

He leans forward and quickly presses his lips against Sirius' before pulling back. "You really think that's all it is?"

"I do. Remember last year, when we had our practice N.E.W.T.s, and Midgen was still studying after we'd all finished? It was because they were letting her re-sit her exams."

"I can't re-sit my N.E.W.T.s, Sirius."

"You won't have to,” Sirius says fiercely. "And you're certainly not going to get Ts on everything. I saw your study notes. There weren't any for Runes or Defence Against the Dark Arts, and hardly any for Care of Magical Creatures, and – "

"That reminds me. Were you able to get my dad's manuscripts to someone to check over them for damage?"

"I handed them over to my solicitor when I was in London. He also said he'd get them valued. He's not an expert, but he can find one. Still, he thinks that all seven volumes together would be worth quite a bit."

He has Sirius' uncle to thank for that. If he'd asked his step-mother for the cash, she'd have thrown him out before he finished the sentence. But it was Alphard Black who had suggested that they get their hands on his father's research, given his father's reputation as an academic.

"I don't really want to sell them," he says. "It's really only in case I have trouble finding a job after school. If I get enough N.E.W.T.s. If anybody'll hire a werewolf for anything. If – "

"I was hoping you'd sell them to me, actually," Sirius says, taking a deep breath before he adds, "in exchange for half of an apartment."

"You..." He can feel his eyebrows go up. "You want to buy a flat? With me? Not... Not Prongs?"

"Prongs is my best friend. He's not the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. Look, you don't have to answer right away, but I'm fairly sure your father's work is worth that. And if you change your mind, then I get your half of the flat back and you get your books back, but..."

It's clear that Sirius has been thinking about this for some time, and while he has his doubts as to how much his father's books are actually worth, Sirius has raised some interesting possibilities.

" – haven't settled on anything, because I wanted you to see it, too. And it doesn't have to be in London. And we wouldn't use Langley's. And if you'd rather live with your mother, that's okay, too." He comes back to himself as Sirius looks at him expectantly. "We don't have to decide right now."

"No," he agrees. "But we can talk about it."

"Later," Sirius says, shovelling everything back into his trunk and dropping the lid. "Let's get you to McGonagall first."

"Yeah, okay," he says, standing and reaching down to help Sirius up to his feet. Sirius' optimism is rubbing off on him, and even though McGonagall hasn't diagnosed him yet, he's starting to feel better already.

"And no studying this afternoon."

"Oh? What shall we do instead?" he asks innocently.

"I was thinking we'd head up to the Mews," Sirius says, leading the way out of the dorm and down the stairs, "and see how long it takes for the Hovering Charm on my bike to kick in when it's flown off the top of Gryffindor Tower."

"Thought it kicked in straight away?"

"That's when it's just me. But I thought today, I'd try it with you with me. See if it can't manage our combined weight."

"Together?"

"Yeah, I think so."

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


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